First Love by Ivan Turgenev - 10 out of 10

 First Love by Ivan Turgenev

10 out of 10


First Love is an exceptional, short novel, included on The Guardian 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read List, for good reason.

Ivan Turgenev was not just a genius, but a wonderful human being, as we can learn from the remarkable book Intellectuals by Paul Johnson, where there is a lineup of the greatest minds, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Henrik Ibsen, Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy among others.
Tolstoy was a phenomenal writer of course, but as a man and friend of Turgenev he proved to be lamentable, if not worse, considering his attitude towards his illegitimate children and the fact that he would not make peace with his friend, even when this one was dying.

Ivan Turgenev is also the author of Fathers and Sons, which is included on the list that the Norwegian Book Club, consulting luminaries like Umberto Eco and Salman Rushdie, has compiled, with the Best 100 Novels ever written.
At the beginning of the narrative, three friends talk Nd one of them has the idea of hearing about their first love experiences - different from the game of telling the worst thing one has done, from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Only Vladimir Petrovich has a fabulous story to tell and he is the hero who is only sixteen when he falls in love for the first time, with Zinaida Alexandrovna Sasyekina, a girl of twenty one, who sometimes plays with the feeling of the younger boy that she often treats as a child and at other times she shows affection, kindness, even kissing him on the mouth, at a moment when he has passed out and she is scared and thinks he is not conscious.

She is the daughter of Princess Zasyekina, who has become so poor as to ask the family of the hero for help, living in what seems like squalor, although she still has what appears to be a butler and another servant.

Zinaida calls the protagonist Voldemar, once they establish a friendship, she even gives him the title of page, one who is always close to the woman he attends to and offers support, she explains.
The young, beautiful, moody, smart girl has an entourage of men that are all in love with her.

The hussar Byelovzorov is passionate and ready to kill himself for her...indeed, when a game is played, he shows that he would use violence against a wife that would leave him.
There is a cynical, if in possession of a good insight into the minds of the others Doctor, called Lushin.

For variety, in this circle of suitors and admirers, the poet Meidanov is included and the hideous Nirmatsky.
However, none of them has any chance of benefiting from the favors of the inaccessible Zina.

She explains to her admirers that she longs for the man who would wait at midnight, by the fountain in the courtyard...she does not say this directly, but using the means of a story, with a queen that everybody loves and who cares only for her mysterious, midnight lover.

As the narrator tries to watch from the garden, at night, what would the woman he loves do, he finds that his father, Pyotr Vasilyevich appears to be involved with the young woman.

For some time, the bond is not clear, the teenager is baffled, confused and does not understand what would Zenaida want from a married man.
There is a serious fight over the affair, between spouses and it is decided that they would leave.

Nevertheless, the affair continues and the narrator has the chance to see his unsuspecting parent in congress with the girl they both love.
The violent lover uses a whip, which paradoxically, unless there is a BDSM inclination there, seems to be accepted, perhaps enjoyed by the passionate Zenaida.

It may not end well, given the torment, the excesses of the characters, but the book is sublime.